This map is the first in a multi-phased project that is visualizing Takten Monastery in an interactive three dimensional space. Takten Monastery was built by Tāranātha and completed in the year 1615. It served as headquarters for the Jonangpa until it was confiscated in 1650. This project utilizes digital architecture technology tools, images and blueprint sketches...

The Jonangpa have longstanding historical and cultural ties to locality. [1] So much so that their very identity is derived from and enmeshed within their place of origin. The term “Jonang” is an abbreviation of “Jomonang,” the name of the valley where the first Jonangpas settled. [2]

Jonang historical texts as well as biographies of early Jonangpa masters reference this first settlement simply as, "Jonang Monastery" ( jo nang dgon pa ). These sources specify this as the founding site of the Jonang tradition.

At Jonang Foundation, we host pilgrimages to power places in Tibet. These pilgrimages are fundraisers for our educational and preservation initiatives. The summer 2011 journey was the second of its kind and included stops at several of the most significant sites for the practice of the Kalachakra in Tibet. During the 2009 pilgrimage, Tulku Zangpo Rinpoche performed a Jonang Kalachakra empowerment at the base of the Jonang Stupa. The summer 2013 pilgrimage will continue along route...

The one who Hugh Richardson referred to in his 1967 article as “a Tibetan antiquarian” in describing his efforts to jot down stone pillar inscriptions in Lhasa and at Samye that date from the 8th and 9th centuries, the Nyingma master Rigzin Tsewang Norbu was a lover of rare books. [1] In fact, it seems that he was a bit of a Buddhist bibliophile.

Working in collaboration with the University of Alabama, we at Jonang Foundation have developed an interactive satellite map of Jonang sites across Tibet. Providing precise geographic locations of key Jonang sites, this map allows users to navigate both historical and active Jonang monasteries, stupas, nunneries, meditation caves, and...

The following post is titled, Emptiness of Self-nature and Emptiness of Other by Cyrus Stearns, a contributing author to the Jonangpa blog. It is an excerpt from the reprint of The Buddha from Dolpo (Snow Lion Publications, 2010). Posted here with permission from the author. [1]

The key in Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen's approach is to link his view of the absolute as empty only of other relative phenomena ( gzhan stong ) to the teachings of the Kṛtayuga, as opposed to the teachings of the Tretāyuga and later eons that emphasize even absolute reality is empty of self-nature ( rang stong...

Maybe its the dark magnetism of impending all hallows' eve, but I'm feeling a mischievous urge to rile up all the ghouls and goblins of unapologetic dogmatism and have them stare in unison — — into The Crystal Mirror . That is, The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems by Thuken Losang Chökyi Nyima (1737-1802). Fortunately, this classical Tibetan polemical text is now available to the English reading world due to the clear translation of Geshe Lhundup Sopa and the lucid editing of Roger Jackson under the umbrella of The Library of Tibetan Classics series (Wisdom Publications, '09). [1]

Commentators on earlier posts have asked or made reference to relationships between the Shangpa lineage and the Jonangpa. [1] In response, I thought to sketch some of the overlapping threads among Shangpas and Jonangpas in order to draw a few historical connections.

The Shangpa lineage, as Tibetologist Matthew Kapstein has described, is like "some vine that adorns a whole forest without being able to stand by itself" so much so that it "may strike one who follows its twists and...

So, the actual name of this place is Jomonang, which is the name of the valley. [1] It is named "Jomonang" because the female local protector deity here is known as Jomo Ngag Gyalmo, who is said to live in the upper ridge right...

Without jumping the gun (as we continue to set the text), I thought to write a post with the hope to help contextualize a forthcoming publication in the Tibetan language on the essential zhentong works by the Jonang master from Dzamthang, Ngawang Tsoknyi Gyatso (1880-1940). [1]

Zhentong — the contemplative view that the ultimate nature of reality is empty of all extraneous superficial characteristics while profusely full of the qualities that define enlightenment — has become a hallmark of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. From its early articulation by Tibetan forefathers of the Jonangpa in the eleventh century, up to Dolpopa Sherab...

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Jonang Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The purposes of Jonang Foundation are to serve as an online educational resource, support the living Jonang tradition through educational and cultural preservation initiatives, and promote research and scholarship about this distinct tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.